Sometimes
liberal bias goes so far it actually becomes absurd, like Roseanne Barr
saying that she would bring back the guillotine in order to behead any
rich people who wanted to keep more than $100 million of their own
money. She set the bar (or the guillotine) higher than her $80 million
net worth. But it wasn’t just extreme left-wing celebs like Roseanne and
Michael Moore, news anchors and hosts have spewed anti-business,
anti-wealth, or anti-capitalism nonsense too.

The
Business and Media Institute hunted down some of the most outrageous
anti-business, anti-wealth, or anti-capitalism comments by news and
entertainment media people in the past year and came up with this list
of eight individuals.

After all, it is April Fools Day.

Piers Morgan: Needs Economics 101

Piers
Morgan, the British host of CNN’s “Piers Morgan Tonight,” must have
trouble grasping basic economics, such as the fact that companies exist
to make money.

The
CNN host is often outrageous and offensive and has spouted off against
businesses many times. On Jun 12, 2012, he tarred Texas businessmen
collectively, based on Hollywood fantasy. Morgan was interviewing cast
members of “Dallas,” which had been rebooted on TNT. He asked Larry
Hagman, “Did
you like being, for what you were for a long period, the most evil man
on television?” Hagman replied that, “I don’t think I was an evil man. I
was just like a Texas businessman, that’s all.” To which Morgan quickly
replied, “Yeah, evil.”

In
March 2012, Morgan argued that businesses should bring jobs back to the
U.S. simply because they should, rather than criticizing the economics
of the problem: the tax advantages that lead to companies sending jobs overseas. Instead, Morgan pouted and declared that he has a “constant nagging problem” with Apple making money overseas. In his view, the company is so successful they could “take the hit” and move jobs back home.

“And
my argument is why don’t they just bring 10 percent of that workforce
from China back to America? Take the hit. Because I reckon they’d sell 4
million iPads next time. What is wrong with that?” From an economic
standpoint, even if Apple did bring those jobs back the company wouldn’t
“take the hit.” Consumers would -- in the form of higher prices which
the company would pass on because it exists to make as much profit as it
can.

Roseanne Barr: OWS Supporter Calls for Return of Guillotine

Actress
and comedienne Roseanne Barr has had a long TV and movie career, but in
recent years has adopted an activist role that includes tweeting
anything she thinks including vulgar and insulting remarks about rich
people. She also ran for the presidential nomination for the Green party.

“I
do say that I am in favor of the return of the guillotine and that is
for the worst of the worst of the guilty. I first would allow the guilty
bankers to pay, you know, the ability to pay back anything over $100
million [of] personal wealth because I believe in a maximum wage of $100
million. And if they are unable to live on that amount of that amount
then they should, you know, go to the re-education camps and if that
doesn't help, then being beheaded,” Barr said in that interview.
Conveniently, the very wealthy Barr has a net worth of roughly $80 million.

And
her rhetoric hasn’t toned down. On Sept. 2, 2012, Barr tweeted that
“most billionaires r violent pedophiles & consumers of violent pedo
porn. they get a kick out of being heartless cruel empty cocaine
addicts.” Talk about a generalization with no supporting evidence.

More
recently (March 20), Barr has said on twitter that “As president” she
would “cancel all student loans-or forgive them” ignoring the obvious
violation of contract law and the terrible precedent such a thing would
create. Moral hazard anyone? On March 15, she attacked Monsanto, a food
company calling it “MonSATAN” over genetically modified seeds.

Jim Avila: ABC’s Food Scare Specialist

In
2012, ABC went hog wild with food scares including a series of attacks
on USDA-approved beef. Jim Avila’s reporting on lean finely textured
beef (LFTB) cost jobs and resulted in a lawsuit against ABC News, Avila
and “World News” anchor Diane Sawyer.

With
Avila outfront, the network repeatedly called the beef “pink slime” -- a
term coined by a former USDA employee. In just two weeks, ABC used the
derogatory label 52 times. The lawsuit claims ABC used the term 137
times in all. The industry and one company in particular, Beef Products,
Inc., (BPI) took a huge hit when it was forced to shut down three
plants and let 650 workers go. BPI claims ABC defamed its product and
made “nearly 200 false and disparaging statements regarding BPI and its product, lean finely textured beef.”

But attacking LFTB was just one of four separate anti-meat topics Avila covered for ABC in 2012. In July 2012, he supplied a one-sided scare story
warning of a supposed “super bug” crisis involving chickens. The
poultry industry had rebutted claims online, but Avila’s report didn’t
mention it.

The
“super bug,” according to an ABC news report, is a strain of bacteria
in chicken that can lead to urinary tract infections in women. But,
according to same report by ABC, “researchers acknowledge that there is
no study showing a definitive link between the E.coli in chicken and
infection in women, but point out that a study like that would be
unethical because it would require intentionally exposing women to the
bacteria.”

He
also scared viewers about a new breed of salmon on ABC’s “Nightline” in
December 2012. AquaBounty, a biotech company, had modified salmon to
reach their full size faster than wild salmon do. The company is waiting
for FDA approval, but ABC and Avila were already concerned it might
cause cancer. He also repeated the name critics use for the salmon, “frankenfish,”
and alluded to the Jurassic Park movies in case that was insufficient
to scare people away from the “highly controversial” possibility.

Ironic,
coming from the co-host of a program “brewed [sponsored] by Starbucks,”
but certainly not new. In 2010, she praised another politician saying,
“[I]n San Francisco, a ban on sugary drinks in city vending machines is
starting to take effect ... That’s so great. It was issued by Mayor Gavin Newsom, my new hero,
Mike Barnicle -- in an effort to combat obesity and improve citizen’s
health, and it will. In fact, if people would just not drink soda pop,
they would be healthier and less fat.”

In fact, soda consumption is down 17.3 percent from its 1998 peak, according to Beverage Digest,
but that hasn’t stopped legislators like Bloomberg or interventionists
in the news media from attacking the industry or the product.

Michael Moore - Millionaire Anti-Capitalism Propagandist

Filmmaker Michael Moore is a left-wing activist and documented liar who
makes movies to drive an agenda. He’s been lauded by people on the left
and embraced by the media, including Larry King who once called him
“our #1 propagandist.” He’s denounced capitalism, even though it has
made him immensely wealthy.

Celebrity Net Worth says Moore is worth $50 million and even Moore himself has admitted he’s a one percenter (after he had claimed he wasn’t).
But he’s thrown his support to the Occupy Wall Street movement, which
denounces the 1% and still claims capitalism is a great evil, saying it “exploits the vast majority so that the few at the top can enrich themselves more.” His
story, going from living on unemployment when he sold his 1989 film
“Roger & Me” for $3 million, would be a capitalist success story --
if only Moore wanted it to be. Instead the man from Michigan, who can
now afford to live in Manhattan, still attacks the system that made him
rich.

In 2009, he said “Capitalism is actually legalized greed”
and criticized how rich the top 1 percent are and argued for “fairness
and equality” in a “Jay Leno Show” appearance as he promoted his movie:
“Capitalism: A Love Story.” Proving that he accepts the liberal notion
of zero-sum economics Moore said, “And you know when you have a pie on
the table … there’s 10 slices and one guy at the table says nine of
those slices are mine and the other nine of you, you can fight over the
last slice. I mean that’s essential the kind of economy we have now.”

Sadly
the media have embraced his screeds against free markets and NBC
“Today” actually gave him a platform to attack Wall Street on Oct. 15,
2009. Moore lashed out at Wall Street, blaming them entirely, for “burn[ing] down our economy.”

In 2008, Moore promoted a full government takeover of the U.S. auto industry to force them to “build hybrids, electrics” and “mass transportation.” In prior years he has crusaded for socialized health care and against guns and second amendment rights.

Martin Bashir: MSNBC Anchor Supplies Budget-Cut Hysteria

Liberals
can’t stand government budget cuts (or the idea of them), even when the
government is bloated and overstuff and those cuts are miniscule in
proportion. MSNBC is in the business of providing far-left hysterics on
just about any issue and when it came to budget cutting, the right was
to blame for deaths from by listeria, and were trying to kill off Meals
on Wheels.

By 2012, the FDA was requesting over a billion more than had been approved by Congress in 2010.

But
Bashir hasn’t let facts like that get in the way of portraying
conservatives as haters of the poor. On Oct. 16, 2012, he ominously
warned on “NewsNation,” “If
his [the House GOP] budget were ever to come to pass, then Meals on
Wheels would be killed, transportation services to the disabled would be
destroyed, food stamps would be eviscerated. I think many Americans
would end up in soup kitchens like that. So I don’t think we should be
critical. I think we should be grateful that what Mr. Ryan has shown us
is exactly what will happen to people if the kind of vicious and callous
budget that he would wish to impose on American people ends up coming
to pass.”

He has also told Republicans to “change the channel
just for a moment from Fox News to PBS this Sunday night ... There, on
“Sesame Street,” they will see the sad face of a hungry doll whose
family doesn’t have enough money to buy food ...”

Not
surprising, Bashir has also called for higher taxes, especially on the
rich and oil companies. In a 2011 interview with Sen. Bernie Sanders, a
socialist, Bashir lamented: “a full 80 percent of Americans favor a
surtax on those earning more than $1 million ... And 74 percent said
it's time to end subsidies for oil and gas companies. Why won't Congress simply do what the people want?”

Although
it’s not so difficult for Williams to imagine since TV Guide reported
that he makes $13 million annually (as of 2011). In 2008, Parade
magazine profiled his luxury Manhattan apartment in the Bloomberg
building, which range in cost from “$2 to $27 million.”

In a 2011”Dateline” broadcast, Williams demanded that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell answer the question, “Why shouldn’t rich folks pay more?”
McConnell pointed out that the wealthy already “pay an extraordinary
amount more, and in fact about half of Americans don’t pay any income
taxes at all.”

Williams has also sounded the alarm on obesity calling it a “health crisis out of control,”
before NBC science correspondent Robert Bazell argued that it is “no
longer a question of individual responsibility, but a need to change
what’s called an ‘obesity-promoting environment.’ Calling on
corporations, government and individuals to act.”

And
in early 2011, he pressed House Speaker John Boehner on his promised
repeal of ObamaCare. Pushing for some justification, Williams asked
“where are you getting the notion ... the American people want it
repealed?” Williams claimed polls showed a 48-47 split on repealing the
health care bill. But several other polls showed much more
dissatisfaction with the legislation, From a CNN poll that found 43
percent support/54 percent opposed, to three other polls that had 10 percent to 17 percent more disapproval for ObamaCare than approval.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: Medical Doctor and CNN Pro-regulation Advocate

There’s
no doubt that Dr. Sanjay Gupta is smart guy, after all he is a
neurosurgeon and assistant professor of neurosurgery at Emory
University’s School of Medicine. But as CNN’s chief medical
correspondent he’s also advocated for taxes and regulation in an attempt
to curb obesity. He was also tapped to be Obama’s surgeon general, but
declined the offer.

He
promoted the war on sugar with a CBS “60 Minutes” report on April 1,
2012. That night he interviewed four scientists who argued that sugars
are “toxic,” “irresistible”
and one whose advice was “Don’t eat sugar.” Dr. Robert Lustig even
implied that sugar should be grouped with alcohol and tobacco and
regulated accordingly. Only one rebuttal was included, from a sugar
association spokesman. Most of the program was spent detailing the
danger of sugars, connecting consumption to heart disease, diabetes and
cancer and included the claim that the brain’s response to sugar is
“reminiscent of drugs like cocaine.”

But
more moderate voices exist. The Dieticians Association of Australia has
said, “A healthy diet involves eating a wide variety of nutritious
foods – while occasionally still being able to enjoy small amounts of
foods containing added sugar. Labelling sugar as ‘toxic’ and ‘addictive’
and placing it in the same boat as alcohol is incorrect and
misleading.”

Dr. Gilbert Ross of The American Council on Science and Health
responded to that CBS report saying, “‘While it may seem convincing to
viewers to see Dr. Gupta drinking a sugary liquid through a straw and
having the reward centers of his brain light up, this in no way serves
as anything close to scientific evidence that sugar is dangerous and
addictive.’ In fact, he points out, ‘Dr. Lustig displayed his lack of
scientific backing and devotion to his own agenda when he blamed
excessive consumption of sugar for the ‘fact’ that cancer and heart
disease rates have been ‘skyrocketing.’ Although the exact opposite is
true, Dr. Gupta didn’t even bat an eye.’”

On CNN, Gupta has supported zoning laws that would keep out fast food restaurants, a plan by the San Francisco mayor to tax drinks sweetened with corn syrup to fight the “obesity epidemic,” and pushed for price controls on not just insurers, but other health care industry groups.

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